112
NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. ix. FEB. 7, int
The name was almost a common one in
High Suffolk for more than two centuries,
but hard times came to the prosperous
farmers, and but few are left in the county.
In Belgium at the present time there are many Damants some Catholic and some Protestant. From the very earliest days they were echevins, burgomasters, and men of mark in the important towns of Ghent, Antwerp, Louvain, Malines, and Brussels. Their tombs are well known in the cathe- drals and churches of the Low Countries; several of them, with their many quarter- ings, were wrecked by mobs, and restored when peace came notably the fine tomb at Antwerp of the Viscount of Brussels and Marquis of Antwerp, whose daughter, Ann Damant, brought her father's titles and lands to the De Varicks. His brother the Bishop of Ghent sleeps in the Damant Chapel with "ses armoires" on his tomb, and his effigy beneath them. Another brother was Chan- cellor of the famous Order of the Golden Fleece; and for generations the Damants had been eminent in the Burgundian Court, and later in those of Charles V. and Philip II.
As they were devoted to the Catholic Church, we can only think that in the troublous times of Spanish oppression, when, as the old chronicles tell us, " families were rent asunder by religious differences," some cadet of Protestant views had to fly to England and join those of his name who were there so prosperous, and thus founded the Wilby branch of this old family.
Their arms first appear in Guillim's edi- tion of 1610 (his first), and a coloured plate of them is there preserved. It is, however, a century before the name of their bearer is given in Kent's ' Guillim,' and the late Chester Herald told me they were a foreign grant.
A suggestion that they were " canting arms," for "Vor dem Rande," has been made, but does not commend itself to the best authorities.
I have but to add to my prolix notes that when Sir William Betham recorded his belief that his forefathers of Eye were Huguenot exiles, he would seem to have been in error. The kind and courteous Secretary of the Huguenot Society has searched his lists and records, and although he finds Dammes and Dammans, &c., trading between East Anglian ports and rivers and the Continent, no single Damant can be found amongst the many Huguenots who flocked into Norfolk and Suffolk after the Revocation of the Edict of Naates.
Y. T.
GILBERT FAMILY (11 S. ix. 49). "Ma-
dam Ann Curtny " was a daughter of
Richard Courtenay by his second wife,
Catherine Waller of Winchester. She was
born 1692, and was buried at St. Paul's,
Exeter, in 1775. Her husband, John Gil-
bert, was baptized at Marldon, Devon,
21 Feb., 1683/4, and died 13 June, 1733.
Her father, Richard Courtenay, was one of
the seventeen children of Sir William Courte-
nay of Powderham by his wife Margaret f
daughter of Sir William Waller, the Parlia-
mentary general.
Richard Courtenay (who was the fourth son) was lost at sea off Leghorn, c. 1696, and two of his eight brothers were also- drowned : William " in the River Plave in Friuli," and Edward in the River Thames.
From the fact that John Gilbert sold the Greenway estate it may be presumed that he was in reduced circumstances. Vivian makes no mention of any issue of this marriage. WILFRED DRAKE.
LONDON NURSERY GROUNDS (11 S. ix. 26). A celebrated London nursery was that of Loddiges, at Hackney. The last vestiges disappeared about 1860. The name is still retained in Loddiges Terrace. See ' Old and New London,' v. 514 ; and an article in Chambers's Journal for October, 1846. A valuable l ; st of nurseries, florists' gardens, &c., is given in Bohn's * Pictorial Handbook to London ' (1859), pp. 531-40.
JOHN T. PAGE.
Long Itchington, Warwickshire.
I can supplement MR. ABRAHAMS'S list of extinct nursery grounds: Frazer's, in Mill- fields, Clapton ; Frazer's, Lea Bridge Road ; Frazer's, Woodford ; Ware's, Tottenham. All have succumbed to the builder within the last fourteen years.
M. L. R. BRESLAR. South Hackney.
FIELD-MARSHAL SIR GEORGE WHITE (11 S. ix. 49). A photographic portrait of " Lieut. - General Sir George White, V.C., G.C.B., &c., in the uniform of Colonel of the Gordon Highlanders/' was reproduced in colours in the portfolio series published, in 1900, by George Newnes under the title of 'Cele- brities of the Army.' The reproduction was from a photograph by Window & Grove, Baker Street, W., and biographical notes were printed on the back. I shall be pleased to show or lend your correspondent my bound volume of the portraits, should he experience difficulty in obtaining a copy. FRED. R. GALE.
103, Abingdon Road, Kensington.
